Posted on 01/08/2012 1:01:25 PM PST by SJackson
I have just returned from a trip where I lay for hours prone on a thin strip of air with only polystyrene separating my strained back from the ground below. The rain belted down all night and its thud upon the tent sounded like a stream of thunder. I pondered whether nature was overrated while several kookaburras shrieked in unison and dragged me in a kind of aural violence from my first period of restful sleep at 5am.
Welcome to the joys of camping.
According to Monash University academic Bill Garner, camping is essential to the Australian experience. From Sydney Cove to the goldfields, the overland telegraph to the Snowy Mountains scheme, camping has been instrumental to almost every phase of our historical development, he says.
Advertisement: Story continues below It was supposed to be one of those dowdy pastimes that became perversely fashionable for a moment, only to become just as unfashionable again once everybody tried it and found out what it actually entailed.
Yet, according to industry insiders, camping is experiencing a boom, partly due to the lacklustre economy and an aversion to extravagance and environmental unfriendliness.
''Glamping''
sleeping in a luxuriously appointed tent someone else has put up for you - is increasingly seen as an acceptable, if not preferable, alternative to a bed-and-breakfast booking.
In our high-tech world, a striving towards gadget-free simplicity and proximity to nature acquires a greater dimension. This may be more apparent in Australia, where our national identity is partly tied to the rugged environment.
But while it has shifted from practical necessity to leisure activity in the past 50 years, there are large sections of Australia that would never consider camping as an idyllic way to spend their holidays - particularly those from ethnic communities.
As I surveyed my surroundings in a coastal caravan park, I was struck that I was the only non-white person among hundreds of gleeful holidaymakers. For many people from ethnic backgrounds, particularly Asian or Mediterranean, the connection between simple living and poverty is just too strong.
Any attempt to brag about my view of green pastures and scenic lakes to my parents is met by comparisons with their own rise from Bangladeshi villages.
In his popular blog "Stuff White People Like", Charles Lander writes: "Once in the camp area, white people will walk around for a while, set up a tent, have a horrible night of sleep, walk around some more. Then they get in the car and go home."
While his blog is often a satire of the bourgeois middle class - our equivalent of the chardonnay socialist - camping arguably unites the white working class and the white middle class in one of their few shared activities, even if they are unlikely to be sharing the same tent.
The late Oxford-based political philosopher G. A. Cohen even used camping as an analogy for why socialism is still the ideal way to organise society.
He described an imaginary camping trip made by several different families, and argued that the trip proceeded according to two principles - "an egalitarian principle" and "a principle of community" - that together captured the socialist vision of a just society.
Nonetheless, after lying awake listening to the nocturnal sounds of nature, I became grateful for our capitalist ability to generate wealth and modern goods and services, including mass production of pharmaceuticals, when I prescribed myself sleeping tablets the following morning.
The prospect of camping becoming a unifying, cultural experience for all Australians remains a possibility, with latter generations of immigrants far more likely to consider it a viable leisure activity.
In fact, in an age where we lack outlets for transcendence, camping has the potential to become the new Buddhism. It encourages us to loosen our attachment to worldly goods, except for expensive outdoor equipment usually transported to a site in a four-wheel-drive. It encourages extended contemplation free from the constant distractions of hectic, modern life.
And finally, it allows for the priceless luxury of simplicity and enjoyment of pure family time, well worth the complexity of preparation required. As Bill Garner put it in an attempt to sell the virtues of this unique leisure activity, "You do just spend a lot of time sitting."
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatrist and Herald columnist.
I can refute your comment in one word.
Detroit.
Take her camping
Prepare a menue
She'll order, you'll deliver.
Be careful what you put on the menu.
OK. You got me there. Detroit is a prime example of what John Derbyshire calls anarcho-tyranny. All the worthwhile things are banned, and none of the laws against the bad things is enforced.
Great post. I’m envious.
It helps to plan your camp with a gorgeous view. It also helps if there are wildflowers you can collect for her. Warm-water showers are essential, out of a 5gal rubber bladder suspended in the trees or a camp shower.
You just have to think it through and have everything nailed down before you drag her out there.
Really enjoyed “camping” at RAAF Darwin during Operation Pitch Black (1984) while in the USAF, the 600 tent was nice, steak & pumpkin everyday, Bundaburg Rum, Sheilas all about. We took a trip off base about twenty miles inland into the outback where we saw tons of wildlife but the 5’ tall ant hills made me glad I was sleeping nowhere near them.
Aye, there is a difference between car camping and backpacking, but there is a level of backpacking you should try. Backpacking without a trail is exhilerating. 30 miles of picking a direction and figuring out how to negotiate every obstacle that comes your way from deep canyons to crossing ridges, knowing full well that if you mess up, you will never be found is an experience unparalled. Even on our cross nevada 4 wheel trips, we often take tracks that barely exist and haven’t been driven on in decades, but a cvehicle is way easier to spot from the air than a lone hiker.
Just, wow!
I backpacked the Shenandoah section of the Appalachian Trail last year. Tent, fleece blanket, and some 40 pounds of other essentials served me well. Comment: Mountain House has the best backpacking/camping meals. I’ve had several brands, but I consider Mountain House “top shelf” eats. Very good stuff.
If one utilizes electricity (the AC kind, not DC battery) and plumbing one is not camping.
What an absolute race-bating, calculated-shaming LIE.
Where's the metrics for this statement? Where are the studies? Or did a bunch of guilty liberals come up with this to appease the hatred of their "race sensitivity" class and declare it "obvious" to anyone except those who are "insensitive"?
And then, of course, they had it written up by a token brown person.
When are "people of color" going to realize how dehumanized "sensitivity trainings" ACTUALLY make them in society?
I guess not until the grant and welfare money runs out.
The standard ethnological term is, I think, “Abboes”.
“Bloody Abboes” is also used.
I may have mispelled a bit.
“The first rule of our club is that you’re not supposed to let others in on the secret. “
While for the most part, I whole-heartedly agree, and I jealously guard my secret spots, Nevada is a state that is 400 miles long and 600 miles wide. If because of this a few more people come to the state to check it out, 99.9% of those will go to an area maked green on the map. 99% of those left will go somewhere that at least has a name on the map, the ones that are left who truly fully explore to the nether reaches, are almost certainly someone I wouldn’t mind running into and having a shot of Jack Daniels with
I have hiked cross country a couple of times, but I knew exactly where I was going.
Backpacking cross country like you suggest seems to violate the rule: "if it is dangerous, don't do it."
But, camping with a car seems pointless. When storm rain hits your tent or a bear visits the camp and your car is a few feet away, it doesn't seem exciting at all.
You could have an ice chest with food in the trunk or folding chairs. Why put your self through misery for that?
True, but the right motorhome can make for a thrilling holiday.
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